


Wounds

by mresundance



Series: The Grace Stories [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Rape Recovery, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mresundance/pseuds/mresundance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em> . . . how dark and dangerous, how deep, this wound of warmth and trust.</em> Sherlock tells John a secret. Written for <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/4777.html?thread=12949417#t12949417 ">this prompt</a> at the Sherlock BBC Kinkmeme.</p><p>This fic is about dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault. It is mentioned in memory and not graphically depicted, but might be triggering.</p><p>Sequel is <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/135020">Grace</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounds

‘That is not funny,’ John says, trying not to laugh. ‘Giggling –’ he fails at not laughing because Sherlock is chuckling in that rumbling baritone. ‘Giggling at jokes like that is like giggling at a crime scene. Worse.’

Their laughter patters against greasy, peeling wallpaper and the sticky countertops of the Chinese restaurant on Baker Street. A few hours ago, Sherlock nearly swallowed a pill and could have died and John shot a man clean through the chest.

‘Honestly though, jokes like that aren’t funny,’ John says. His eyes are hard and sad.

Sherlock filches John’s cup and drinks. His scalpel sharp eyes do not leave John’s face for that minute. Sherlock’s body still crackles with adrenaline from his battle of wits with the cabby, from the seconds before and after the shot, from the jolt of seeing John waiting for him in the street. That jolt was a sheering pain, like being cleaved through with a knife. Then a spreading warmth, like bleeding. It is a wound, Sherlock muses, these feelings of trust he has for John. It gapes open in him, draining him of the strength to reason.

It’s a thrill too. Because how dark and dangerous, how deep, this wound of warmth and trust. Sherlock wants to see if he can open it wider. How much it will hurt. How deep it could go.

So Sherlock makes a rash choice, given that he and John barely know each other.

‘Considering that it’s something I’ve lived through,’ he says, both precise and light, ‘I don’t see why it’s not appropriate for me to tell the occasional rape joke. Humor can be – useful – in dealing with such matters.’

John’s entire body flinches. His quiet becomes a sinkhole into which the cramped, oily restaurant begins to fall. Instead of being whimsical and fake, the posters of cranes and chipped plastic statues of winding dragons are garish; grotesque with sharp beaks and gaping toothed mouths.

‘Oh Sherlock,’ John says quietly.

Sherlock finishes the dregs and puts the cup down. He’s careful; his shaking hand does not make the cup clatter against the stained saucer. The wound has opened wider than he can bear. He tells himself he deserves it. He should know better, because the outcome is always the same. The look of disgust in the other person’s face. Then the other person saying ‘it’s ok’ over and over, when they really mean it’s not. Experience has shown as much. He shouldn’t be surprised, or disappointed by John, just because he wants John to be different. This is why letting emotions make choices is categorically foolish and problematic at best. Stiffly, Sherlock draws his black coat around him and buttons it up to his chin, as if by doing so he can button up his wound as well.

‘We’ll not mention this further.’ Sherlock yanks his black gloves on, standing to leave.

‘Sh-Sherlock,’ John says. ‘No – I – shit. I’m sorry. Please. Talk to me. If you want.’

Sherlock looks at John’s face. It’s soft, imploring. Not disgusted.

Slowly, Sherlock sits back down. The silence between them lasts seven minutes and the cat clock on the wall chimes the hour, yellow eyes lighting up.

John’s face is still pleading. Sherlock shakes his head a little. John’s brow wrinkles and then relaxes into understanding

‘Ok,’ John says.

Sherlock then tells a dead baby joke which John tries, and fails, to not laugh at. They are still laughing when they return to the outside world. The air’s cold enough to turn John’s cheeks red in a minute. Bumping one another, they hurry to 221b, alternating between the sulfuric orange light of streetlamps and pitch black of the spaces between. Within sight of home, underneath a streetlamp, John stops and hooks his hand in Sherlock’s elbow. He’s smiling, but his body language is wary.

‘In spite of your inappropriate jokes,’ he says, ‘I’ve – wanted to kiss you most of the night.’

Sherlock’s lungs constrict and the street seems too vast and too empty.

‘Yes,’ he says, breath puffing out in white clouds and mingling with John’s. John’s smile is electric and he takes a fistful of Sherlock’s coat as they kiss. He tastes like salt and bad Chinese takeaway. Also, he stands on his tip toes to reach. Sherlock adores this more than the tender, reverent way John’s lips and tongue touch his.

Emotion is good for some things after all, Sherlock thinks.

*

  
Still, it’s three weeks and two cases before their huddle on the sofa turns into kissing and then something else altogether. For those three weeks, Sherlock guards himself, hoping the wound might seal itself up. He’ll wake up one day not wanting to kiss John, or touch him, or tell him secrets which make them both uneasy and quiet.

One day, Sherlock will tell John. He will tell him about Matt at university. Not all the details, of course, just the overview. That Matt was his first flat-mate, chestnut haired, with a spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks. That when he laughed the world seemed to brighten. Matt was also the first man he kissed and slept with. They spent whole nights together, burning with sex and cocaine, until the stars went out one by one.

‘We weren’t boyfriends, not really. Nothing – formal. We experimented and enjoyed each other’s companionship,’ Sherlock will explain. ‘But I don’t know if I loved him.’ Then Sherlock will correct himself. No, he had loved Matt. He had the scar from that wound as proof. Because Matt came in one night, high enough he could float right over the spire of Big Ben. He invaded Sherlock’s bed and no matter how much Sherlock resisted, or told him, loudly, flatly, to stop, and no – Matt was adrift and did not hear him. Until Sherlock sagged and resigned himself. And hated himself every day for it; for his weakness, for his helplessness.

‘I want you out,’ he told Matt in the morning.

‘Sherlock – what? Why? What happened?’ A spike of panic in Matt’s voice. ‘What did I do? Did I do something? Christ, I don’t –’

‘You assaulted me, that’s what happened.’

In that moment the world entire had fractured for Sherlock and probably for Matt. Matt turned gray, like he was going to pass out or vomit, or both. Shaking, he said: ‘Sherlock – I –’

‘Get out,’ Sherlock said.

Matt closed his mouth and nodded. He packed his things. The wound Matt had caused, both lovely and utterly destroying, had not healed for years.

But John’s wound –the one which Sherlock dances around, as he does John, for three weeks – this does not want to heal either, for different reasons. As John hums with Sherlock in his mouth, Sherlock feels like the wound must be festering by now. Infecting the tissue around it and spreading slowly as a weightless feeling overtakes Sherlock. Yes. He strokes John’s tawny hair.

After, they both lay in a heap in front of the couch, dozing. When they wake Mrs. Hudson is talking to the telly, the world dimming as evening approaches. For awhile they only listen and hold each other and Sherlock counts each of John’s heartbeats. He’s at 1,279 when John wriggles from Sherlock’s arms and winks at him. Sherlock gives chase and they frisk around the flat. If Sherlock catches John, he holds him just long enough for a few kisses, caresses, before John slips free.

They end up sprawled in John’s bed. Naked, John is gorgeous with all those brown tan-lines, the same comforting color as tea. His body is frank, in a way, the scars bold but not overly complicated. Compared to Sherlock he’s compact – conveniently travel sized, even. Beneath John’s ribs Sherlock discovers a perfect strand of sensitive skin which he tickles just so he can hear John’s laugh, like music, reverberate through the room. He loves the sound so much he can’t stop even when John has him on his knees.

‘Stop,’ John’s rhythm breaks as Sherlock grazes him. ‘Stop or you’re not getting properly fucked,’ he laughs.

Sherlock doesn’t stop and neither of them come; they’re laughing too much. John finally pulls out and wrestles Sherlock into the mattress and kisses him until he can’t breathe. It doesn’t matter. John wraps him, firmly and simply, in his arms. As far as first time sex, or any sex, it was marvelous. Every part of Sherlock is feverish and alive.

Definitely infected, he thinks. He puts his hands over John’s, clasped at his waist.

*

  
The next evening, Sherlock lies in his own bed, thinking of too much in particular. John knocks on the doorframe to his room. The setting sun has drenched the world in crimson and John is tinged pink by it.

‘Can I come in?’ he asks.

Sherlock, hands triangled under his chin, smirks.

‘I suppose.’

As John steps through the doorway, his entire body is taut; fists wedged in his pockets, shoulder-blades so tense they nearly meet.

‘If we’re having sex, I think there’s something we should talk about,’ he says. Sherlock likes the way he says ‘if’, just as he liked the way John paused to ask if Sherlock was alright with what they were doing last night.

‘I’ve wanted to talk to you about it since the Chinese restaurant, actually.’

Sherlock’s entire body stiffens. He glares at John. He never wants to talk about this. Because if he does, it means he has to take that scar Matt left and cut it open all over again. Cut down through the muscle and nerve and into bone.

‘I told you, we’re never discussing that again,’ Sherlock says, hoarsely and furiously. Rolling on his side, back to John, he bunches into a ball.

John’s weight disrupts the mattress as he sits one the edge of the bed. Sherlock’s stomach lurches and he’s back at university again, with Matt clambering over him. He’s shuddering so hard that he doesn’t hear John for a minute. Gradually, John’s voice becomes near instead of far.

‘ . . . I was fifteen, then. There was this girl on my street I fancied. She was eighteen. She had this gorgeous black hair all the way down to her waist,’ John’s voice is choked. ‘God. I really thought I was in love with her. Anyways. There was a party the next row of houses over and she was going to be there. I snuck out because I wanted to see her. I – wasn’t going to drink,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I was sensible even then,’ he laughs. It’s not a happy sound but more akin to a bird flapping broken wings. ‘She – I went out to the garden with her, to the tool-shed. We chatted and I thought she was so lovely. She kept giving me wine so I thought it was alright.’ He sighs and the sound is so deep down and so heavy. ‘It was so cold that night, Sherlock. It think the dew froze on the grass. I was drunk. I didn’t know what was going on, really, but I didn’t want it to happen – I didn’t. I didn’t say no.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t. And then she just left me there in the cold. I. Didn’t know what to do. I went home. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t tell anyone, because it was ridiculous. I told Harry, eventually,’ he adds. ‘Before I went into the army.’ John pauses. ‘A few others. But I told Harry first because I knew she wouldn’t tell me I was – ridiculous.’

John struggles for a moment. ‘Anyways, I don’t know how it was for you, but I wanted you to know that I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. And – I understand.’

Sherlock hurts all over and – he doesn’t know for sure – something is welling up within him. A great tearing feeling that makes his eyes wet. He blinks. Unbunching, he rolls around. John, slump shouldered, still sits on the edge of his bed.

Sherlock reaches for John and John reaches in return, letting Sherlock pull him into his arms. They can’t see each other clearly; the sun has gone down and the world is blue and gray between the shadows. But Sherlock nuzzles John and then kisses him. Their kisses aren’t erotic, or sexual; only warm and reassuring, like their hands as they cradle one another.

The wound parts gently wider and Sherlock lets himself tumble down into it. Because how dark and comforting, how deep, this wound of warmth and trust.


End file.
